16 Books GovLoop Wants to Read

New year, new you, new list of dozens of books that you are dying to read. Here at the GovLoop offices, we’re no different – everybody has a to-read list a mile long, both of fiction, non-fiction, and books that will inspire us to be better in the workplace. At a recent team meeting, we kicked off our time with an icebreaker about what books we hope to read in 2015. Some were fiction, some were geared towards career advice, and some were just plain random. Our list is below — here’s hoping it will help you flesh out your 2015 reading list! What books are you hoping to tackle this year? Leave your to-reads in the comments below.

Like this post? Make sure to check out 10 Must-Read Books for Women in Government, and 4 Books to Add to Your 2015 Reading List for more.

1. How Google Works: “In an era when everything is speeding up, the best way for businesses to succeed is to attract smart-creative people and give them an environment where they can thrive at scale. HOW GOOGLE WORKS explains how to do just that.”
2. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: “This #1 New York Times best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing.”
3. Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever: “In this revised edition of the immensely popular and influential Why Geography Matters, de Blij tackles topics from the burgeoning presence of China to the troubling disarray of the European Union, from the dangerous nuclear ambitions of North Korea to the revolutionary Arab Spring. By improving our understanding of the world’s geography, de Blij shows, we can better respond to the events around us, and better prepare ourselves to face the global challenges ahead.”
4. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls: “If you’ve read any of David Sedaris’s previous works, you know what you’re in for with his latest book Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls. Sedaris is an author who has no legitimate reason to change his approach to writing–he’s taken the snarky, sometimes crude, often hilarious, ultimately thought-provoking personal essay to the level of mastery. One could easily argue that he’s set the bar for observational comedy, and for that reason alone fans new and old will make each book he writes a publishing sensation.”
5. Mistakes I Made at Work: “High-achieving women share their worst mistakes at work—and how learning from them paved the way to success.”
6. The Organized Mind: “In The Organized Mind, Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, uses the latest brain science to demonstrate how those people excel—and how readers can use their methods to regain a sense of mastery over the way they organize their homes, workplaces, and time.”
7. I Quit, But Forgot to Tell You: “I Quit, But Forgot to Tell You examines the virus of disengagement and provides some real-world antidotes to prevent this plague from contaminating your entire organization. I Quit, But Forgot to Tell You can transform your management team and the way they motivate their team members.”
8. Crucial Conversations: “The first edition of Crucial Conversations exploded onto the scene and revolutionized the way millions of people communicate when stakes are high. This new edition gives you the tools to: Prepare for high-stakes situations; transform anger and hurt feelings into powerful dialogue; make it safe to talk about almost anything; be persuasive, not abrasive.”
9. A More Beautiful Question: “In this groundbreaking book, journalist and innovation expert Warren Berger shows that one of the most powerful forces for igniting change in business and in our daily lives is a simple, under-appreciated tool—one that has been available to us since childhood.”
10. Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!: “A page-turning, warts-and-all narrative about Marissa Mayer’s efforts to remake Yahoo as well as her own rise from Stanford University undergrad to CEO of a $30 billion corporation by the age of 38.”
11. The Design of Everyday Things: “First, businesses discovered quality as a key competitive edge; next came service. Now, Donald A. Norman, former Director of the Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of California, reveals how smart design is the new competitive frontier.”
12. Content Rules: “Blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other platforms are giving everyone a “voice,” including organizations and their customers. So how do you create the stories, videos, and blog posts that cultivate fans, arouse passion for your products or services, and ignite your business?”
13. Predictable Revenue: “Discover the outbound sales process that, in just a few years, helped add $100 million in recurring revenue to Salesforce.com, almost doubling their enterprise growth… with zero cold calls.”
14. The Leadership Challenge: “The authors’ central theme remains the same and is more relevant today than ever: “Leadership is Everyone?s Business.” Their “five practices” and “ten commitments” have been proven by hundreds of thousands of dedicated, successful leaders.”
15. Creative Confidence: “Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the “creative types.”  But two of the leading experts in innovation, design, and creativity on the planet show us that each and every  one of us is creative.”
16. Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work: “Reward and recognition programs can be costly and inefficient, and they primarily reward employees who are already highly engaged and productive performers. Worse still, these programs actually decrease employee motivation because they can make individual recognition, rather than the overall success of the team, the goal. Yet many businesses turn to these measures first—unaware of a better alternative. So, when it comes to changing your organizational culture, carrots and sticks don’t work!”